On my meeting at— having known some of his family well, and himself slightly, and having heard he, was a changed man and had become “religious,” as it is termed; I was anxious to see what his religion was thinking, that as our habits and tastes, it may be, in life had been more or less alike, if it was available for him it might be for me.
Not having seen him for five years at least, his appearance struck me very much. The marked alteration in his countenance shewed me not only that his health was gone but that there had been much inward working of the mind: At first he avoided me, evidently; but, as I was quite indifferent to anything in the way of slight, having been tolerably well hardened to what the world calls “cutting,” I rather forced him to speak to me.
Long, long had I known that the salvation of the soul—the home for eternity—was the only thing worth living for here, and as long had it been ever uppermost in my mind that here it must be settled; but, being brought up in the usual way, viz., taught, (here he goes over the usual religious training and attending to ordinances, &c.), I never gave that any place seriously in my thoughts or mind as good for anything in the sight of God, seeing that myself, as well as others—all nearly that I knew—I saw lived in sin, open sin, generally; and those who did not, only had a form, while the decent sober moralities of their heart and life was their real standing and religion before God.
I was far too real in my ideas of God and heaven to let this be of much value in my eyes; and so, up to the day I had this following conversation with him, I was a total stranger to peace with God through Jesus Christ. After two or three times of meeting, he said all at once, “Do you not read the Bible?” “Yes,” I said, “I do; but I can get no comfort from it.” A long pause ensued. I then said, “I will tell you my stumbling-block: I can fear God, but I cannot love Him.” “Love God!” he said, with such an expression of countenance and despair as I never saw depicted, “I have not a bit of love of God in me; He loves me!” (1 John 4:99In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9).)
This astonished me so much, that if I had been taken up in the clouds, I could not have been more surprised. He was then going home to dinner; and as he went into the house, he put a book into my hands and said, “There you read that.” This book was “Eyles Pierce’s Letters.” I immediately opened the book; and, reading letter after letter, as I went home, I had a distinct mental revelation of Jesus Christ as my Saviour, and so forcible as almost to make me shout out, “Now I shall go to heaven,” a thing I had for at least twenty-five years utterly despaired of. When I got home I read and read, and the truth was more and more confirmed and brought home to my heart and conscience with God. From that hour to this I have never lived ten minutes without the sense of God’s love and my own degradation and sin before me; and, through grace I can say it, with much desire to be more and more thankful that I have rarely, if ever, been without the full assurance of having my sins forgiven for His name’s sake who died, the just for the unjust, to bring such poor, degraded, guilty wretches as myself to God. (1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18).) Wondrous thought, but true! and not more wondrous than true!
Alas, alas! to live the life of Christ while in the flesh is no easy matter; and although I cannot boast, I can say honestly that “old things have passed away, and all things become new;” and my earnest desire and prayer is to glorify God in my body and my spirit which are His, and to present my body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, by and through Jesus Christ, being assured that this is my reasonable service.
Nothing is available but the Holy Ghost working in me, as the servant of Jesus Christ, to carry on and complete the work He has begun, till He shall come to take me to Himself. May I be found watching and waiting, walking in the Spirit, and thus not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.